Announcement & Healthier Food Ideas!

Hey everybody!! How are things going with you all?? I've been away for about a month...two weeks were family vacation to Mississippi and then two have been me dealing with laptop issues which have kept me from writing very many posts. I have to say that it is a HUGE relief to have the wonderful contributors Kathia & Frances here on EEG Blog! They have helped make my life much easier because they're helping me keep this blog active & also helping encourage and reach readers I didn't have connections with before!! If you'd be interested in contributing you can always EMAIL ME and we'll talk about it! :)

I was finally brave enough to plug in my laptop and hope that it wouldn't start smelling like smoke again...and it doesn't!! Thank you Jesus!! I know I'll still have to take it to be fixed at a Best Buy store, but to have internet at my fingertips once again is heavenly!

I have been scheduling Words On Sunday posts for my main blog earlier and I ran across some really great things on Pinterest to share. Most of those will be shared over on my main blog for the next 9+ weeks to come, but today I wanted to share with you this photo:

{photo via Greatist}

Nothing about fitness & health is about going fast! How many of you know that to be true? (and if you didn't know, now you do!) I have been on a personal battle with fitness for several years now. In 2011 I was able to loose 30+ lbs that I had gained in less than a month because of a medication I was taking for my brain injury. It took me almost a year of walking 1 hour or more a day, drinking lots of water, and staying committed to loosing that weight to make it go away. Let me tell you: that was not a fast process!!

My current fitness & health battle plan has been: well plain laziness!! Since I lost that weight in 2011 I haven't done much to continue working towards being fit. I was happy with being a size 12. I really didn't try hard to eat healthy this past year and I'm regretting that because I could've been doing so much more than I did...but looking back does me no good, I need to focus on right now and what I can do now instead of worrying about the future!

I was originally planning to wait on this announcement for a few more weeks (until after I was able to see my doctor), but it is slightly necessary in order to understand my new reasons and plans I have for wanting to be healthier:

Yes!! I'm pregnant!! :) I'm really excited to be having a baby, but I sure don't like the process of getting the baby!! I found out on May 10th and it turns out I'm about 10 weeks along already! I had no clue!!

Because of me being pregnant I have started making a lot of much more healthier food choices than I have in the past year. I did tell Autry when we went down to Mississippi that if I wasn't pregnant (we were originally going to take a test on Mothers Day, but that's a whole different story!) I wanted to start eating really healthy and exercising a lot...I also told him that if I WAS pregnant, then I would still plan to eat a lot healthier, but I've always heard pregnant women get strange cravings so I wasn't going to be super strict about the healthy thing...now that doesn't mean I don't eat healthy most days of the week, it just means that when I have the occasional odd craving I'm going to allow myself to eat a few bites of it so the craving will go away.

So some of the foods I eat on a regular basis now are:

Salads! I've been eating the mess out of salads...granted I only had iceberg lettuce in the fridge...but the next time I go shopping I'll be buying some spinach and other dark green leafy lettuce(s). One of my favorite types of salads to eat is Taco Salad. I usually just use kidney beans, cheese, salsa, black olives, and a little ranch dressing. Occasionally I'll add some crushed Dorito nacho cheese chips too. Fruit Salad. I make up a salad with cheese, paremesan cheese, lettuce, ranch dressing and top it off with some raisins. You could also do dried cranberries which I use too, but not as often as raisins. Croutons and almond slices are also good on this type of salad.

Chicken Breasts! I'm not a terribly huge fan of meat, but I will eat chicken. I like to have my hubby cook up some chicken breasts in the oven with his secret barbecue sauce mix. This is one of my favorite ways to eat chicken breasts...I also like them on sandwiches such as the Subway Oven Roasted Chicken Sub. I usually get that with three servings of lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives and ranch. And yes I used to eat black olives before I was pregnant so this is nothing unusual for me! :)

Potatoes! I don't know about you, but I love potatoes!! And there are so many great & healthy ways to fix them too! Here are some of the mostly healthy ways I fix me a baked potato. Classic: butter, green onions, turkey bacon bits (I usually cook up a few pieces of turkey bacon and then break it into bits for different things such as this), and a little ranch dressing to help keep it from being too dry. Mexican: butter, salsa and a little cheese. Basic: butter and a little ranch. Yes, ranch dressing is one of my favorites and even though it's not terribly the best for you it is one thing that I do like to eat with most everything.

Smoothies! These are huge for me right now. Especially the fruit ones because in this constant nausea feeling most things do not sound appetizing at ALL! Does anyone know how this feels? I know my mother does!! Anyway, one thing I've found that I can handle is a fruit smoothie blend of frozen peaches, blueberries, and strawberries with a little milk or some yogurt to smooth it out. These are both tasty and delicious!

Tacos! Did you realize that tacos can be practically anything that's wrapped up in a tortilla? This is a fairly recent obsession food of mine because there are so many varieties you can put together and most of them taste fantastic!! Try a Classic Taco with the regular: beans, black olives, meat, cheese, salsa, lettuce, tomato...etc. One of my recent tortilla discoveries is the Cold Meat Taco, it's like a sandwich, but with a tortilla instead of bread! I usually do lettuce, sandwich cheese, and a few pieces of sandwich meat (3) and then top it off with a bit of ranch for sauce. A popular recipe that was shared here on EEG Blog awhile back is Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos. Be sure to check that out if you like fish!

Other healthy foods that I like to either eat or snack on are: flavored yogurts, oatmeal, almonds, cottage cheese (some people argue that this isn't healthy, and I'm not saying that it's the best thing for you, but I love it!), spinach, banana chips, whole wheat bread, frozen grapes and frozen yogurt bites (recipe here).

I don't want you all thinking I eat healthy all the time, because I don't, but I am trying and these are some of the ways and foods that I use to work on healthier eating habits. What healthy foods/meals to you fix for yourself and/or your family?