The Quarantine 19

I keep hearing people talk about the Quarantine 19 (like the freshman 15). I get it. Being stuck inside for most of the day, or outside but still not on your regular schedule, can throw your eating off. All of a sudden, that highly motivated healthy eater becomes a hungry, munching dragon ready to devour her husband who is getting in between her and her next snack. I'm not talking from experience. Why are your looking at me like I'm talking from experience?! Okay, I'm totally talking from experience. This happened to us just last Saturday. Ben handed me food and told me to eat as he slowly backed away from me. I'm determined not to gain the Quarantine 19. I actually have a goal of losing a few lbs and working on toning up through exercise during this time so I need to have a plan.

We are going to snack. There is nothing wrong with snacking as long as there is portion control and some healthy eating to balance it. Maybe mix some healthy snacks in there. Side note: My dad once told me he was eating healthier and had a trail mix. I looked at it....it was mainly M&Ms....like almost all M&Ms. A few raisins and peanuts doesn't make it trail mix guys. 🤣

I decided to do a blog entry revisiting some of my favorite healthy meals and snacks that I have been eating.

Breakfast:

1. 2-3 servings of liquid egg whites on an English muffin (I love the cinnamon raisin ones) and 1/2 cup of fat free milk. I can't do regular milk because the fat triggers GERD.

2. 2-3 servings of egg whites with two pieces of toast (no butter). I put the eggs on the toast for flavor.

3. 2-3 servings of egg whites (seeing a trend here 😉) cooked and then placed in a high fiber, low fat tortilla (I use Ole' Xtreme Wellness tortillas because they have 11 grams of fiber and 1.5 grams of fat) with 2 tbs of fat free cheddar cheese. I then role up the tortilla into a burrito and cook it on the stove for about 3 minutes on each side to brown it. The whole process takes less than ten minutes, and I can walk away from the stove while the burrito is browning to get other things done.

4. 1 serving of Bran Flakes with 1/2 cup of fat free milk. Watch out for some bran cereals that come with fruit or granola because they can be loaded with sugar. I just use a plain bran flakes cereal and add in about 8 raisins to it if I want to make my own raisin bran cereal.

5. Breakfast burritos part 2- I cook breakfast burritos for my husband that are different than mine but still healthy. For his, the inside has breakfast potatoes (read the back of the bags if you buy frozen instead of cutting the potatoes fresh. Potatoes have 0 grams of fat, some hashbrowns have 8 grams per serving). I cook the potatoes with onions and peppers. Then I cook some breakfast turkey sausage (If you have a Kroger affiliate around you, their Simple Truth breakfast sausage has only 4 grams of fat per serving, and you normally don't need a full serving per burrito). I do a mixture of eggs and egg whites (about 4 servings of liquid egg whites to 2 whole eggs). Then I mix everything in a big bowl and make burritos with the mixture and some fat free cheese. This process takes a little longer to make all of the burritos, but I normally make about ten at a time and can wrap them and freeze them for my husband to grab on the go in the morning. He likes adding a little salsa to them after heating them up.

Lunch/Supper

Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir Fry
-6-8 cups of veggies ( I use the Normandy broccoli mix at Sams and frozen peas because those are my favorites)
-1 lb of chicken breast
-6 tbs of honey
-6 tsp of ginger

I start by cooking my 1 lb of chicken breast (I use the tenders) in a pan until they are cooked through. I've also done this with extra lean ground turkey. In a pot, I mix and cook down all of my veggies. You can do fresh or frozen. I normally use frozen because I keep plenty on hand, but I throw in whatever I have fresh on hand also, like snap peas. Cut up the chicken in smaller pieces and mix it in with the cooked veggies. Add your honey and ginger, starting with smaller amounts and adding more as needed. It's that simple and so delicious! I always have leftovers to freeze for days when I need a meal. That way I don't reach for something unhealthy.

Winter Lentil Soup (Stewp is what I call it)
-1 lb chicken breast
-about 2lbs of potatoes, chopped
-1 cup of green lentils
-1 1/4 cups of green peas (or 1 can of no salt added green peas)
-1 3/4 cup of green beans (or 1 can of no salt added green beans)
-25 baby carrots (or you can use carrots. I always have baby carrots in my refrigerator.)
-8 cups of low sodium chicken broth
-1 can of no salt added black beans (optional, or you can choose another bean you love to add fiber)

This is a dump recipe that I created when I was hungry one night, and it has become a favorite. I cook the chicken in a separate pan and then chop it. Then I start with just the chicken broth and the chopped potatoes in the pot because they potatoes take longer, and I want them really cooked down. Bring it to a boil. I then add the other ingredients, bring it to a boil, and then lower the fire to medium and let it simmer for a while. After a while, I mash some of the potatoes to thicken it up. That's when it becomes more of a stewp than a soup. We still have some winter days in our spring so this is nice for those days. I make a big pot and, you guessed it, freeze 1 cup portions to have when I need it. I use no salt added to control how much salt I want to add to it.

Turkey Burgers (so much better than the frozen ones at the store)
-1 lb extra lean ground turkey
-1 serving of egg whites
-1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs or 1/4 cup regular bread crumbs

That's it! I mix everything all together and make 5 patties. For mine, I just use salt because I can't have a lot of seasoning. Ben loves Pampered Chef's Smoked Applewood rub so I use that on his. This is an easy meal when you don't have much time.

Burrito Bowls
- These are one of my favorite family meals because everyone can put what they want in them. I cook chicken breast and ground turkey (with taco seasoning for the ground turkey), pinto beans, black beans, rice (you don't need much. We use 1 cup for all of us for a couple of meals), lettuce, fat free cheese, and pico de gallo (for the husband since I can't have tomatoes.  A typical burrito bowl for me include about 3 oz of chicken, 2 tbs of rice, 1/4 cup of pinto beans, 1/4 cup of black beans, lettuce, and 2 tbs of cheese. I normally make plenty, and we make the leftovers into burritos the next day.
Hint! I use canned beans to make it go quickly but hate the sodium. So, I buy no salt added beans so that I can control how much salt we put into them.

Snacks

Almost No Fat Banana Bread
This is one of my favorites, and my son and students love it too. This one isn't my recipe. It comes from Allrecipes. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23426/almost-no-fat-banana-bread/ It's delicious and freezes well.

Gingerbread Cookies (not just for Christmas)

-3/4 cup mashed bananas ( I normally use applesauce to replace butter, but I didn't have any so I just used mashed bananas. You can sub applesauce if you don't like bananas.)

-1 cup brown sugar

-1 serving of liquid egg whites

-3/4 cup molasses

-4 cups of flour (I used white flour because I didn't have any wheat flour. Wheat flour would have upped the fiber content)

-2 tsp ground ginger

-1.5 tsp baking soda

-1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

.75 tsp ground cloves

.25 tsp salt

Directions:

Mash the bananas well. Mix the mashed bananas and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add egg and molasses and mix again. In a separate bowl,( I know, I hate dirtying two bowls too.) mix the flour, ginger, baking soda, ground cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Add the dry mixture to your wet mixture a little at a time and mix together. Cover and refrigerate for a while, depending on how hard you need the mixture to be. I just dropped by spoonfuls so I only refrigerated the cookie dough for about an hour to make it easier to work with. If you want to use cookie cutters, I would recommend refrigerating the cookie dough for a few hours. 

Drop by spoonfuls onto your cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. My first batch was fine at 10 minutes and my second one burned a little.

I hope some of these gave you some new ideas to try. I'll continue to post some of my favorites over the next few weeks. The picture was my supper tonight, sweet and sour chicken stir fry!

Cheater, Cheater IHOP Eater

Since being diagnosed with GERD, I've been extremely careful with what I eat. This has gotten me looks and comments about how I don't eat "normal food." I hear," One cookie won't kill you." and, my personal favorite that I have heard so many times,"If I had to eat like you I would want to die."  It honestly doesn't phase me because I know that I'm feeding my body what it needs. Others have told me that they have GERD and eat whatever they want and just pop a pill or deal with the pain. If that's your plan and it works for you, all the power to you. Every case is different, and the pain is unbearable and not worth it for me.

So, story time. 🎶 Just sit right back and you will hear a tale of a fateful trip🎶....sorry, childhood memories coming back with that one. I just wanted to tell a story of what happened to me today and why I'm so strict with my eating. We rarely go out to eat. My GERD control freak self can't do it because I can't see them preparing my meal. Most "healthy" meals at restaurants are ruined for me with how they are cooked. We once ate at Texas Roadhouse where the waiter confirmed that everything, including steamed veggies and baked potatoes, is cooked in butter. Luckily, he was able to request no butter with my steamed veggies, but the baked potato was a no go.

This morning we decided to eat as a family at IHOP. My son's eyes got twice as big as he saw his cupcake pancake, eggs, sausage, and bacon. My husband had chicken fried steak, pancakes, and eggs (of course I heard about how his stomach hurt after because it doesn't go with the food he normally eats anymore). I sat there and was perfectly content with two poached egg whites, a plain Thomas English Muffin toasted, and a glass of apple juice, all GERD diet approved. I lie, I totally wasn't fine with it. I eyed both of their meals and craved one bite of pancakes with yummy butter pecan syrup. Anyone who knows me well knows that I firmly believe that every day is worth sprinkle infused food (I had funfetti cake for my birthday every year before this.) so my son's cupcake pancake looked like the promise land. But, I have GERD and that's just how it is, so I ate my plain food and soaked in the fun of us all going eat out together.

....until about five minutes after we left the restaurant. I had been done eating for a while, and I was starting not to feel well. All of the signs of my GERD attacks from before were coming back to me. My back hurt from the acid, my chest felt tight, and I had to say excuse me a million times because we are trying to teach my son manners and mommy was burping often. I took Tums as soon as we got home and have some extra strength Zantac calling my name when I am done with this because, hours later, the pain is still there. I've been sucking on ginger candies all day to help as well.

I ate everything that I should have, but my doctor warned me that restaurants don't always cook food like they say they do, and often people are triggered accidentally after they thought they were eating the correct foods. Our best guess is that my English muffin was actually toasted where they cook all the other food, meaning it was cooked where they put oil and butter.

Eating the way I do is a lifelong thing. When people say they would want to die if they had to eat like me, I want to tell them that they would feel like they are dying if they had my GERD and didn't eat like I do. So, whether it is GERD or some other kind of medical condition that makes you eat a certain way (or if you just want to eat the way you want to because whose business is it to judge you for the food that you are putting in your mouth, your mouth...repeat that...your mouth, not theirs), you've got this! You are amazing! Forget anyone who doesn't understand. It's not their job to understand. It's their job to be them, and it is your job to be you.

                               My son's breakfast from this morning because, y'all, the sprinkles!