Onward to Day 6 of the Countdown to Christmas with 25 Days of Clean Eating Challenge. I slept in today and worked a little while before I decided to make some yummies. I was on my own for breakfast as Ryan is still sleeping off his drinks from last night. 
Breakfast
I bet you are thinking – Pancakes and bacon??? How is that clean eating? Oh but it is my friend, at least, according to me it is. 
I made blueberry pancakes pancake using this recipe, adding in a few frozen blueberries into the batter. I topped it with a little Trader Joes crunchy Valencia peanut butter and agave syrup, and heated two slices of Welshire Farms reduced fat bacon in the oven on a cookie cooling rack, which I placed on top of a baking sheet. This allows the fat to drip off. I cook it a long time so it’s really crispy and then I pat it dry once I take it out of the oven. I am a bacon lover so I have bacon on weekends and actually, I had it while I was losing weight gaining a stellar, smokin body as well!
I also had a mug of Cinnamon Swirl flavored coffee from Schuil Coffee with skim milk and stevia.
On the weekends I often change up my eating schedule. Typically I will eat 2 larger meals, with a snack or two in between. We tend to have a larger breakfast and then a snack to tide us over until dinner on Saturdays. Saturdays are usually our splurge day, where I eat whatever it is that I want to eat, in appropriate portion sizes. Since I am doing the Countdown to Christmas with 25 Days of Clean Eating Challenge, I will do this still, yet be sure to stick to whole, clean foods. I do this on Sundays as well, with the 2 larger meals, with a snack in between, but I normally always stick to totally clean foods on this day (challenge or not). I like giving myself this flexibility on the weekends, because these are the days when I am usually out and about with friends, checking out a new restaurant, or something like that where I want to be able to feel like I can enjoy a particular food, etc if I really want to.
This way I know that the majority of the time, I am filling my body with food that is nutritionally good for me, and any splurges I have on the weekends are minute in the grand scheme of things. When I was losing fat, and I was almost to my goal (within a few pounds) I did have to pay a little closer attention and not give myself as much leeway on the weekends, but still gave myself some flexibility. Overall, it’s just a matter of burning more calories than you take in.
Snack
Had a couple handfuls of my favorite cereal, Barbara’s Shredded Oats, while working on our Christmas card order through Shutterfly. Typically I would try to get in a little protein here, but still haven’t had a chance to get groceries…
Dinner
I ran up to Whole Foods and picked up some ingredients to make spaghetti, with ezekiel sprouted wheat noodles, and a side of steamed green beans. Basically I cooked up some diced onion, mushrooms, and carrots (for a little extra sweetness) until tender. Then added in a pound of ground sirloin, and broke that up into pieces as it cooked. When the meat was fully cooked, I poured off the liquid and added San Marzano marinara sauce. It’s our favorite type of jarred spaghetti sauce. Most times we make our own using canned tomatoes, but we use this one when we are in more of a hurry. It only has a handful of ingredients. I cook 6 oz of noodles in a big pot of water, drain the water, and add them to the pan of spaghetti sauce, mix it all up, and serve. I eat almost a 1/4 of it with a sprinkle of real Parmesan cheese.
The ezekiel noodles are a bit more… gummy (??) than normal pasta noodles, and I think some people might be turned off by the texture, but I actually like it because when you mix it with the pasta sauce, it almost seems to make it more creamy and thick.
We watched Star Trek (finally) as we ate. A little bit later we had some Stonyfield low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt with a couple teaspoons of crunchy peanut butter mixed in. Sometimes I really I like creating my own frozen yogurt concoctions, rather than buying (and then getting disappointed with) the kind with the crappy, sugary, hard, cookie dough mixed in. Blah. The movie was good. I never used to be a big fan of Star Trek but liked it a lot. And loved the Rachel Nichols cameo, ha! Go green Rachel!
Today was pretty low key. Ryan was not feeling 100% because of the drinks he had last night. It doesn’t take much for your body to get out of whack when you are used to having 2 beers max in a night. Ha!
No workout for me today, but I am planning to get at least yoga in tomorrow.
