What are your favorite healthy meals, snacks and desserts?

Beans are my go to food. For a quick snack, or I can put them over rice. I always eat organic black beans.
I also love nachos, covered in beans of course (refried pinto). Lots of fiber.
I also eat a lot of pizza. Not delivery, but home made or frozen. Trader Joe’s always has a fun variety.

If you can tell me a healthy dessert that doesn’t taste like it’s cheating me in taste, well that would be worth its weight in gold.

I love chilled fruits! Grapes, oranges, apples, melons, watermelons, pineapple, fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges…. ai yi yi

Mmmm food.

I LOVE food too :)
And I too let myself go after my son was born so I completely understand :)

Lately we’ve been doing a smoothy for breakfast every day. We don’t make fancy smoothies either. One because we are cheap and two because we are lazy, lol.
We just add frozen fruits to fruit juice (we do our best to find fruit juice with little to no added sugar) & blend. They come out fantastic. And they are so filling and so sweet. Yum!

Also we eat salads at least twice a week. They are our staple for lunches and sometimes a big one for dinner. Our new household rule is hubby makes breakfast (smoothies) and I make lunch (salads unless there are leftovers from dinner). Now if you want some fantastic salad and salad dressing recipes I will be happy to provide them. They are not weird either. LOL.

Another wonder-food I have found lately is pesto. Now I know some love it and some hate it but I love it. See we mostly end up eating unhealthy or fastfood when we are tired and don’t want to cook after a long day. So I save a container of pesto in the fridge for those days. It is so simple to make a pesto pasta or a pesto pita or a pesto wrap.

I buy most of my snack foods at Trader Joes these days. They have lower fat and healthier alternatives and they taste fantastic. My most recent find is popcorn in a bag (already popped). It is made with sea salt and olive oil which to me sounded so different I had to try it. It taste just like buttered popcorn and is so much healthier. I love it!

When it comes to dinner meals we do a variety of foods. We buy organic meats now because of the toxins in regular meats. It is a bit more expensive but the improved flavor is so worth it. Protein is rarely fattening if cooked the right way. Learning to make a good meatloaf is a lifesaver. And learning to make good chicken is a lifesaver. Also learning how to steam some tasty veggies is a lifesaver. If you don’t have anything else on hand buy some teriyaki sauce and some soy sauce. You can put that on chicken before baking and you can put it on steamed veggies before they are done and it’ll make anything taste good (even if you aren’t a fan of soy as a dipping sauce, my hubby hates soy but loves to cook with it).

@casheroo Oh I should have put those in. Black beans are fantastic!! And there are so many ways to eat them.

I like “edamame”. Steamed soybeans in the shell. They sell them in the freezer section. Add a little salt and they’re delicious with a cup of green tea.

@RedPowerLady : Thanks, that’s fantastic stuff! Do you add milk to your smoothies at all? And I’d love a salad dressing recipe- let’s have your favorite… and on which salad you like it best. I need to go to Trader Joe’s more often because I do like it, but haven’t gotten acquainted with it enough to go regularly.

@Lupin : I have some of those in the freezer actually, but haven’t been sure about how to enjoy them. Thanks!

For a healthy snack I usually eat nuts, yogurt or a chocolate slim-fast shake.

Boca Burgers! They’re veggie burgers that are way more healthy and a lot lower in fat than beef hamburgers, they take less time to prepare, and they taste just like meat!

Nuts, yogurt, cottage cheese, low sodium pretzels, carrot sticks with hummus, cucumber slices with mustard. Anything high protein that doesn’t have too much sodium is great. Just keep snacks under 200 calories each, and meals around 400. Weigh/measure your portions per the label, look up raw foods online.

Losing weight is work.

Don’t forget to go outside and do something – anything. Get the blood pumping and the juices flowing.

@3or4monsters : TELLLLLLL me about it.

@Lupin: I walk every day with my son who is 2. I usually end up carrying him, too, so the blood, she is a pumping.

Weetabix with fruit, especially banana. Mmm.

Diet routine:

Breakfast:

Vanilla yogurt (1/2 cup) with 1/2 banana, blueberrries and a handful of walnuts

Lunch:

Hummus on whole wheat pita with lettuce, tomato and European cuke or
Cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread w/ veggies

Supper:

Tuna melts or
Dinner salad or
Fish or
Sushi or
Diet recipes from Weight Watcher cookbooks or online sites

We’ve discovered Gala apples are delicious.

My husband’s been dieting and his coach said he should just eat 3/4 of what he usually eats. I have to eat practically nothing to lose weight which sucks!

@ubersiren No milk in the smoothies at all. Milk isn’t very healthy for my body so I try not to add it in.

Okay this is my typical salad dressing recipe, therefor it is my favorite :) I use it on any type of green salad:

1. You get a bowl.
2. You pour Olive Oil in it. Let’s say 1/2 a cup.
3. You pour Red Wine Vinegar in it. Let’s say a 1/4 of a cup. (i visualize).
4. You taste to see if it is too vinegary or too oily and add either as needed. After one or two times you get the hang of it.
5. Add in garlic salt, parmesean cheese, lemon pepper, a squirt of lemon juice, and just 1 tsp. of spicy brown mustard (not dijon but spicy brown).
6. Mix well and enjoy!

If I’m in the mood for healthy food I usually like ants on a log. For those of you who don’t know what that is it’s celery with peanut butter and raisins. You put the peanut butter in the crescent of the celery then you stick the raisins in the peanut butter. My second choice is strawberry yogurt with granola bits in it. Also, plain fruit like pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, kiwi, pears, on and on.

Oh and going off of @3or4monsters if you like hummus it is a great snack. It can be used to spice up lots of things including veggies and is much healthier than ranch.

I posted this in another question, but the women in my office swear by this site and it’s fun. The editors track down all the newest, healthy products, show you how to knock off restaurant meals and how to throw together quick and healthy meals.

I love, love, love to eat and I refuse to have an unhealthy relationship with food, or be afraid of it, so I just try to ‘clean up’ what I eat and go for more complex flavors, less fats and cream sauces. I avoid processed foods. What I’ve found works best for snacks are handfuls of nuts, celery and peanut butter (Trader Joe’s makes pre-cut snack packs), apples with almond butter or edamame. Hummus, baba ghanouj, and black bean dip are also great options, as mentioned above.

For quick and healthy dinners I usually make some kind of salad with grilled chicken or seafood. I keep one of those large plastic tubs of mixed baby greens, pre-shredded carrots, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. in the fridge. If I just get home from work and am tired, I literally take handfuls of it all, throw it into a mixing bowl, splash it with an olive-oil based vinaigrette and mix it with tongs.

Once you start making a few small changes you’ll notice that your palate will change too – the heavy stuff will make you feel gross.

I have a major sweet tooth and still haven’t figured out my way around dessert other than lower-sugar sorbet, frozen yogurt with fresh fruit, and pieces of real high-quality chocolate.

Good luck, Ubersiren!

When the 3 o’clock munchies start to get to me, I love to snack on a good energy trail mix. I’m not talking about the kind that is pre-prepared available in the store, but the kind you personalize at home. In mine, I always include almonds, dried pineapple, dried blueberries, banana crisps, walnuts, flax seeds (getting in the fiber ;)), and some rich dark organic chocolate. This is extremely filling and very satisfying; it allows for immense variation in that you add whatever type of dried fruit or nut that you desire, and the quantity is your decision as well.

I also adore vegetable chips I’m talking about the vegetables that are baked until they are crispy, not the chips that are simply made from a vegetable powder dipped in a low fat balsamic vinaigrette. Yum.

@whackyrusty : I thought Weetabix was a fictional cereal mentioned in Buffy the Vampire Slayer! I’ll have to look for it here across the pond.

@RedPowerLady : That sounds like a very tasty dressing. Thanks for all your great suggestions.

@figbash : I am totally bookmarking that site. Again, more great suggestions from a jelly! Thank you for the encouragement. :)

What would I do without you, my fellow flutherites?

maybe this is weird, but basically my favourite snack in the world is green grapes with peanut butter (preferably fresh, natural peanut butter. they sell it at publix here, and probably other states’ variation of it too). soo good haha.

@tiffyandthewall I love peanut butter too! I’ve never tried it with grapes though, I will have to soon.

For a snack I like a banana with some peanut butter! I know it might sound a little weird, but it’s tasty, also delicious with almond butter.

Chipotle, Easy Mac (snack), and Greaters Ice Cream

I’m really digging blueberries, cottage cheese, freeze pops, and Post trail mix crunch-cranberry vanilla right now. Bananas are one of the only fruits that can actually make you gain weight, so i usually will only have 1/2 of one on my cereal. When you go shopping, make yourself by only healthy stuff. At least that way, the junk’s not in the house. In my case if it’s there i will eat it.. Sometimes when i’m seriously craving junk, I’ll have a glass of fat free milk. Also the healthy choice soups in the to go cups are decent & low in calories.

I have a smoothie as a meal replacement for breakfast daily. I purchased a commercial grade blender from Blendtec. Great investment for me because I love smoothies and it’s fun experimenting with different combos of liquids (apple juice, fruit punch, soy milk) and fruits.

I freeze the fruits. It helps them last long.

My next purchase will be a juicer so I can juice veggies. Drinking veggies and fruits is fun and delicious and very healthy.