Summer is here. Schools are letting out. The kids are home.
Life as we know it is more hectic than ever. More and more demands. Unfortunately, if we forget about what we are eating, we lose it – not the weight! – the progress.
Here are a few ideas of how to meet the demands of summer.
1. Buy bottles of water in the 16 oz (1 pint) size. Then get a huge box of your favorite Crystal Lite (or other ‘diet’ powdered drink) in those new handy packets. Keep the water in the fridge, and ever time you get juice for the kids or a coke or whatever, you can pull out the bottle of water and pour a packet in it. Or just drink the water. I have a water spicket in the door of my fridge, so I just take one of the empty water bottles, fill it up with old water, and in goes the packet.
2. Get your cucumbers and zucchini/summer/other squashes you like, put them in a food processor to slice them, then put about a cup in a zip lock sandwich bag. Again, when you are in there getting snacks for the kids, grab a bag. You could add some fat free ranch or italian dressing if you wanted (but I would put that in just before you eat them).
3. You can core and slice apples like that too and put them in bags. They should last a couple days in the fridge.
4. Get a couple boxes of sugar free Popsicle’s. Blue Bunny makes some good ones that come 24 to a box. They are like 5-10 calories each, so you can eat several during the day.
5. Make turkey burger patties out of ground turkey, dried peppers (green peppers), and finely diced onion. Either precook them and freeze, or freeze until you are ready to cook them. Then while others are having their BBQ, you can have a tasty burger. Remember the whole grain bread, tortilla, or bun.
6. To complement the turkey burger, you can have 13 fat free Pringles.
7. Make cole slaw out of splenda, fat free mayo, and mixed cabbage. I actually like to use either fat free ranch dressing or fat free italian dressing instead of the mayo. The splenda tops the whole taste – not very much, just enough to make the difference.
8. 2/3’s cup of Kaashi autumn wheat or Cinnamon harvest wheat cereal has plenty of fiber, a tad of sugar, and tastes wonderful dry – leaving the skim milk for a skinny latte. You can get it either hot or iced at Star Bucks (yes I am a star bucks junkie).
9. Then there is always the sugar free jello, which with fat free whip is wonderful. But watch the label. The Whip might have extra sugar in it. The best I have found is the Redi Whip fat free in the squirt can.
10. Summer is great for grilling. Chicken breast is always a good pick from the grill. Make sure it wasn’t marinated in a sauce that adds fats or sugars.
There’s my ten – we need your summer tips too – leave them in a comment!
Listen to this post
